


Factions

by Anonymous



Series: Logged Out [5]
Category: Log Horizon
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:15:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26507332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Shiroe is worried again while meeting with the people of the land, but he talks it out some with Akatsuki.
Relationships: Akatsuki/Shiroe (Log Horizon)
Series: Logged Out [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1892488
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18
Collections: Anonymous





	Factions

**Author's Note:**

> (I hate doing summaries for one-shots. It's accurate but sounds awful. But what else is there to say?)
> 
> I kind of was in hiding after my last one since it might have seemed offensive to some, and then I was sick, and I'm still sick off and on (not covid or anything, I just have many various non-life-threatening but disruptive health issues) and so it took me a while to get back to this series.
> 
> This came in part because I was only up to playing Wow and was contemplating how to bridge the gap of doing things on the Horde side when most of my characters, including my main, are on Alliance and how strange it was to have boosted a character to a high level for the opposite faction and be running around doing things with so much lore missing (since my main is going for loremaster but has a ways to go after four years away from playing.) 
> 
> Anyway, the question of factions got raised in my head between playing and WoW fanfic searches, and this happened. I thought I'd be doing the dance part with these two because it's so good or maybe the other outside perspective thing I had in mind, but neither of those happened and instead, I wrote this. Sorry.

* * *

“Kei?”

He jumped a little before relaxing. He offered up a small smile, looking a bit sheepish. Shizuka knew she moved quietly, but she hadn’t even tried to that time. She had not intended to sneak up on him. She’d thought he would have heard her, since she’d come in the normal way instead of using any of her ninja skills.

“Sorry. I guess I was a bit lost in thought.”

He often was, more so now than before, but then when they were online together and using voice chat, it was in a different world, one where they were simply playing a game and not living it. He still had his moments, but he tended to brood more and more here.

“What are you thinking?”

“Oh, I suppose I’m making more trouble for myself than I should,” he admitted, and she frowned. He laughed a little. “Well, while we’ve been here interacting with the People of the Land, I kept thinking about what it would have been like if Elder Tales had been a different game.”

“A different—you mean like the one we were beta testing?”

“Not necessarily that one specifically, but…” Kei’s eyes returned to the distance. “If Elder Tales had a system more like World of Warcraft or similar games—ones where there’s two or more opposing factions… I’ve been thinking about how hard it has been just to figure out how to work with the People of the Land, the NPCs, but if we had actually had to deal with players in the opposite factions and NPCs from those same factions… Our struggle to survive here might actually be… impossible.”

She nodded, sitting down next to him. She could understand that. Most NPCs from opposing factions were completely hostile to the other, and they would attack player characters of the opposing faction just for coming near them. The way the game worked meant that they were forever locked in angry battle and opposition, that they hated based on the faction they were in.

Some games wouldn’t even let a character transfer an item to another character of the opposing faction even if they were on the same account.

“It might work differently, too, in this world, since not all rules of the game apply,” he went on. “We’d be able to talk to player characters of the opposing faction, at least, but the NPCs… That might still not work.”

“Some NPCs were neutral or wanted peace with the other faction.”

“True. It’s just…”

“You do not believe that we can keep peace with the People of the Land?”

Kei shook his head. “I think we can manage to make it work between us and them. So far we’ve managing. We’re learning about them, and them about us. We have things they want, and we can negotiate with them. It looks like we can have peace for now. Here, at least.”

She studied him.

He winced and looked away. “Yes. I think that peace might not last in other places. We know that with the Silver Sword going to Susukino, and with what we already did when we left, it should be better for everyone there, but there are some troubling reports from other cities.”

“And?” She reached over to touch his wrinkled brow, since she knew that more was bothering him than what he’d said.

“I… Well, what if we had been in a game that had two opposing factions?”

“And instead of me rolling a new character so that I did not have to play as male with you, I was rolling a new one on a different side?”

He nodded, a faint flush on his cheeks. “Yes. That. Exactly that. Before I thought about how it might have been if either of us had been stuck as the low level alt we’d made, but if we were on opposite sides of a faction war… we couldn’t talk to each other or help each other. It’s not just about the Round Table being impossible—that thought is scary enough, honestly, but if I couldn’t talk to you… I mean, there are people that wouldn’t care, they’d just barge past the enemy lines and try for peace anyway, but… I didn’t even know you were Akatsuki. If I didn’t know which character you were on an opposing faction…”

“You worry too much,” she said, massaging his forehead. He twisted his lip as he continued to frown. “Didn’t I say I’d find you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you doubt that?”

He shook his head. “No. I don’t. Somehow, you’d always find me. I believe that.”

She smiled, sitting back and letting herself lean against him just a little as she took something out of her bag. “Red bean cake?”

“That’s how I’d know it was you,” he told her, and she flushed, suddenly shy as he reached out to take it from her.

She had to get a hold of herself, had to calm down some, regain composure. “I’d know by your terrible dancing.”

“I’m going to kill Krusty,” Kei muttered, shaking his head before biting into the red bean cake. “Wait. No. Dancing in the game was programmed. You wouldn’t even know what it looked like when I danced. You’ve only been able to see that here.”

“True.” She had to resist the urge to reach over and brush a crumb from the side of his mouth. “But I would still know you.”

“You would.”

She wondered at his hesitation. Did he not think he knew her so well? Perhaps not. These feelings that seemed to grow in her by day were invisible to him even when they seemed to her to be more obvious than Naotsugu’s perversion or Serara’s crush on Nyanta.

“I want to believe I’d know you, too,” he said, almost too quietly for her to hear, and when she looked over at him, he’d buried his face deep into the cake.

Still, she smiled as she took out a cake of her own. “Me, too.”


End file.
